Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2019 to Question 219503 on Occupational Pensions, what criteria her Department uses to assess the effect of the (a) 2018 and (b) 2019 increases in the minimum contribution rates.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
As part of its 2017 Automatic Enrolment Review the Government committed to build on the success of Automatic Enrolment by continuing to monitor and evaluate the impact of increased contributions in 2018 and 2019, as the contributions rose to 5% and 8%.
In April 2018, the first of two planned Automatic Enrolment minimum contribution increases took place, with total contributions increasing from 2% to 5%.
Following the first contribution increase, the Government did a detailed evaluation in the 2018 Automatic Enrolment evaluation report (published December 2018), which provides early evidence suggesting that the first increase has gone smoothly with no significant change in savings behaviours.
A link for the report can be found here:
The Department is continuing to closely monitor and evaluate the impacts of the phased contribution increases throughout 2019 and will do a detailed evaluation of the 8% rise 2019/2020.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answer of 19 February 2019 to Question 219503 on Occupational Pensions, with which stakeholders her Department plans to consult on the evaluation of Automatic Enrolment.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to maintaining the consensus with employers, pension providers, payroll companies, consumer groups, Government departments, analytical teams and other delivery partners, which has been a hallmark of the success of Automatic Enrolment. We will continue to inform stakeholders about any future consultations, and evaluation or implementation plans.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to identify eligible carers who do not claim carer's allowance.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Information on Carer’s Allowance (CA) is widely available, including online through Gov.uk and to those who visit Jobcentres. Organisations supporting carers, and other stakeholders and partners, also make information available on carers benefits, including CA.
Carers can also now claim CA online. Since this option was made available in October 2013 over a million people have claimed this way. Over 80% of customers claim CA online every week and over 90% of those have said they are happy with the online service.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to advertise carer's allowance to people who may be eligible to claim the benefit.
Answered by Sarah Newton
Information on Carer’s Allowance (CA) is widely available, including online through Gov.uk and to those who visit Jobcentres. Organisations supporting carers, and other stakeholders and partners, also make information available on carers benefits, including CA.
Carers can also now claim CA online. Since this option was made available in October 2013 over a million people have claimed this way. Over 80% of customers claim CA online every week and over 90% of those have said they are happy with the online service.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of lowering the age limit for pensions auto-enrolment to 18.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
The Government is committed to continuing to make workplace pension saving the norm for young people. As part of the 2017 Review of Automatic Enrolment, we set out our ambition to reduce the minimum age threshold from age 22 to 18 – enabling more people to begin to save.
Reducing the eligibility criteria for employers to enrol workers to age 18 helps to reinforce the norm that the majority of young people will start to pay into a pension from their first pay cheque. It will also simplify the workforce assessment for employers: all eligible workers would benefit from automatic enrolment from age 18 whoever employs them.
The Government recognises that employers, payroll and other delivery partners need time to plan for these changes. Employers need time to adjust to costs over the coming years before the Review proposals are implemented. We also want to understand properly the impact of the April 2019 contribution increase before committing to a timetable for the proposed changes.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what proportion of paying parents using the child maintenance service are in arrears.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Paying Parents using the Child Maintenance Service can either arrange the payments between themselves (Direct Pay) or if the parents cannot do this or they don’t pay, the Child Maintenance Service have the Collect & Pay service which can collect and manage the payments between the parents. The Department has no knowledge of what has been paid for Paying Parents using the Direct Pay service as parents manage the payments between themselves. In September 2018, 65% of Child Maintenance Service arrangements were Direct Pay.
The Department does hold data on compliance rates for Paying Parents using the Collect and Pay Service which can be seen in ‘Table 7: Paying Parent Compliance’ of the Child Maintenance Service statistics: August 2013 – September 2018.
Please note that the table does not accurately represent the proportion of Paying Parents who are in arrears. “Compliance” means that the paying parent paid some child maintenance in the last three months. So a parent may have paid some child maintenance but may still be in arrears. If a parent is not compliant they have not paid any of their liability in the quarter.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what research her Department conducted to establish the link between foodbank use and the roll-out of universal credit.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
We have always said that there are many reasons that people use foodbanks. However, we have listened to feedback on how we can best support our claimants and acted quickly, making improvements, such as extending advances, removing waiting days, and introducing housing benefit run-on, that serve to reduce the waiting time for the first payment. These changes are giving support to vulnerable people who need it most, whilst at the same time helping people get into work faster.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reasons her Department is not represented on the Government's cross-departmental strategy on suicide prevention.
Answered by Sarah Newton
DWP is represented on the National Suicide Prevention Strategy Delivery Group through the Department’s Chief Psychologist. The Department contributed to the most recent annual progress report of the Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Strategy published in January 2019.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the potential merits of amending her Department's Statement of Fitness for Work Med 3 form so that a GP of a sick or disabled benefit claimant could be asked directly if there would be a substantial risk of harm if that claimant was found fit for work following a work capability assessment.
Answered by Sarah Newton
The Statement of Fitness for Work form (Med 3) or ‘fit note’ is issued for Statutory Sick Pay or Social Security purposes. Registered Medical Practitioners record their assessment of whether their patient is ‘not fit’ or ‘may be fit’ for work if their medical condition or illness impacts on their ability to work. There is no difference in the way the form is completed for Statutory Sick Pay or to support a claim to health related benefits.
Part of the role of the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) decision maker is to decide whether finding the claimant fit for work or Work Related Activity would trigger substantial risk of harm. In making their decision, they consider the advice from the healthcare professional (HCP) who carried out the assessment, as well as any evidence provided by the claimant’s GP or any other supporting professional. It is important to note that while the GPs’ primary role is to diagnose and treat their patients, the role of the HCP is to assess the effects of a claimant’s illness on their ability to perform everyday work-related activities.
Asked by: Angela Crawley (Scottish National Party - Lanark and Hamilton East)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what discussions she has had with stakeholders on removing the lower earnings limit as a result of the Automatic Enrolment Review 2017 in the last 12 months.
Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)
As part of its 2017 Review the Government committed to build on the consensus on automatic enrolment, which has been a hallmark of the success of the development and operation of the policy.
Our ambition is to implement the proposals in the Review, including the removal of the lower earnings limit in the mid-2020s – this is subject to discussions with stakeholders on the implementation approach, finding ways to make these changes affordable, and evidence of the impact of the increases in statutory minimum contribution rates from April 2019.
We recognise that employers, payroll and other delivery partners need time to plan for these changes, so that they can manage costs with certainty. Over the past 12 months Ministers and officials have and continue to engage regularly with employers, pension providers, consumer groups and other delivery partners on a range of matters including these areas and have debated Automatic Enrolment in parliament on several occasions. We will continue to do so to inform future consultation on implementation plans.